


Why Arthur Kirkland Sucks At Cooking

by AquaTheLita



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: England sucks at cooking, Gen, Story within a Story, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 11:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15817710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AquaTheLita/pseuds/AquaTheLita
Summary: “Gather ‘round, children. I, Alfred F. Jones, am going to tell you a wonderful tale. This is the thrilling, epic, and tragic story of how it came to be that Arthur ‘Artie Fartie’ Iggnatus Azalea Eyebrows Kirkland came to be so terrible at cooking absolutely everything and anything. A family classic that all are sure to enjoy!”





	Why Arthur Kirkland Sucks At Cooking

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote and posted this over 3 years ago on ff.n. I'm reposting it here and now because why not. It has been edited only for typos, not for content.

A blonde-haired 238-year-old that is physically a 19-year-old but looks like a 21-year-old walks into a room. He is carrying a huge-ass book with a wordless book jacket on it. The book jacket fits the book, but still doesn’t look like it belongs to the book it is on.

Alfred Jones, the personification of America, walks toward a chair in the center of the room and sits down in it.

He smiles and begins to speak. “Gather ‘round, children and larger children who look like adults but totally aren’t adults, and I will tell you all a tale, an age-old legend that is totally true and has been passed down from generation to generation...”

He puts the huge-ass book on his lap.

“This is the story of why Arthur ‘Artie-Fartie’ Iggnatus Azalea Eyebrows Kirkland, also known as the personification of England, sucks at cooking absolutely everything.”

Alfred opens the book (which is actually a huge-ass encyclopedia with a random book jacket) and flips to a random page. He begins to read, his tone a blend of a stereotypical storyteller voice and a stereotypical narrator voice.

* * *

“Once upon a time, long ago, in the year negative fifty hundredty BC (a year that proves that Artie-Fartie is like hella old), there was a small person named Arthur Iggnatus Azalea Eyebrows Kirkland, who was the personification of England, which back then was nothing but a small kingdom of tea-obsessed nomadic people who spoke with a weird accent, said and spelled absolutely every single word that existed in the English dictionary completely wrong, and drove on the wrong side of the road. (Nothing has really changed since then, except that now Arthur is older and the kingdom is now a nation.) This little person had the fattest eyebrows of any person who existed ever at that time. He was a tsundere and he had no friends, making him the most friend-lacking person ever. Aside from eyebrow game and friendlessness, this person also excelled at two other things: magic and cooking. Becuz it was the year negative fifty hundredty BC, magic and cooking hadn't been invented yet, so everyone thought he was crazy—but also genius and amazing—for being so good at them.

“But everything changed when the you-dun-fuked-up nation attacked.”

He turns the page.

“One day, Arthur was doing some magic shit down in his weird magic liar place thing in his basement—which also hadn’t been invented yet—when he messed up in his potion spell. He didn’t realize his mistake at the time. But had he done so, the world might have turned out very differently. Instead of making an eyebrow-waxing potion, he ended up creating a time-traveling spell. Before he knew what was even happening, the spell activated and his pentagon started glowing. It glew brighter and brighter until he couldn’t see himself, then brighter and brighter still until he couldn’t even feel himself. Then, all of a sudden, he was gone.”

He turns his head to look at the next page.

“When he came to, he found himself in the year 2012 AD. Startled and scared and confused, the young Arthur ran around trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened and where he was. Once he realized he had time traveled, he had another question:

_“WHEN_  was he?

“He found a laptop and fiddled around with it, trying to figure out how this newfangled technology thing worked. To his own surprise, he found that he was able to operate the strange machine, and was able to then figure out the date.

“March 28, 2012.”

He turns the page.

“Arthur messed around with the laptop and tried to understand it in the hopes that this magic machine would tell him how to do the time travel spell again and get him back to his time.”

Alfred’s voice goes low and mysterious and suspense-y. “That laptop would do the opposite of help him...”

He turns his head to look at the other page.

“He chanced upon a strange site called ‘YouTube’. He kept saying...” He switched to a really really British accent mocking England's voice. “...‘ _OI! YOU THERE! TUBE! ‘OW DA BLOODY ‘ELL AM I SUPPOSTA GET BACK TO MAH OWN BUGGERING TIME!_ ’” He went back to his normal voice. “People looked at him weird and told him to stop being loud and to go shave his damn eyebrows. He ignored them. He only cared about YouTube. The site did not answer his yelling. He somehow accidentally made a YouTube account and somehow accidentally subscribed to a bunch of random channels.

“Then, while he was looking at the feed of newly uploaded videos...”

He pauses.

“IT BEGAN.”

Alfred turns the page, his eyes wide and body tense, his voice still suspenseful-y.

“Arthur gasped as video after video after video popped up and somehow started playing without England knowing how it was happening or how to stop it! He didn’t know what to do! All he could manage to do was stare at the screen with wide unblinking eyes and his mouth open wide and his body shaking in bewilderment and  _TERROR_!”

Alfred suddenly sweeps his hand to the side and does gestures with it as he reads dramatically.

“The videos kept coming! England watched, transfixed, gaze locked on the screen, as if under some kind of spell! The videos played, 94 of them in all, each of them from the same channel...

“How. To. BASIC!”

“He watched video after video of how to do basic things, all with simple titles with ‘How to’ in them. How to open a water bottle, for example. But these titles were misleading, as were their thumbnails. In truth, the videos all were tutorials on how to cook food in a disgusting and despicable manner! Messes on the counter! Chocolate on the floor! Pasta sauce on the legs! Sausages in the microwave! Eggs on the ceiling fan! Eggs in the bathtub! Eggs in the toilet! EGGS EVERYWHERE!”

He quiets and calmly turns the page, then gets loud and animated again.

“The poor Iggy-child sat there, unable to look away. He watched video after video, every single leg rub, every single hand pat, every single egg smash.

“After who knows how long, the last video—the 94th video that had been uploaded that day by HowToBasic in the 43 seconds it and the other 93 videos had been uploaded in—finally ended, and the accidental playlist came to a halt. But England just sat there, effectively traumatized.

“All of a sudden, a portal opened behind him. The time-traveling spell had worn off. England was sucked away from the laptop and suddenly thrust back into his time.” Alfred pauses and holds back an immature snicker at the word 'thrust’. He then clears his throat. “Ahem... What became of the laptop? No one will ever know...”

He turns the page.

Alfred's voice finally goes back to normal finally. “Arthur was out cold for 43 minutes and 94 seconds after returning to his own time. When he awoke, people were standing over him wondering and murmuring and asking what the fuck just happened. Iggy couldn’t reply properly. All he said in response was asking ‘ _how do I basic...?_ ’ over and over again. Concerned, the people took him to his room, locked him in, and told him he couldn’t come out until he had sobered up. The memories of the videos haunted Iggy, keeping him awake during the week he was in that room supposedly ‘sobering up’.”

He turns his head to look at the next page.

“When they finally let him out, he decided to do something about his memories so they wouldn’t haunt him again. He went back to his magic secret basement lair and worked on a potion that would make him lose his memory. He managed to make one. It would make him forget everything that happened in the 24 hours of a day of his choosing within the last month. He made two, just in case, and took both potions. One of them was for the day a week ago, when he time traveled. The other was for March 28, 2012, just in case the time thing made that day eligible as well. Within minutes, he lost all memory of what had happened then. The potions had worked! He didn’t remember a thing. All he really knew was that it had something to do with ‘Basic-ing’, eggs, and cooking. He decided to not cook at all for a month, to avoid memories coming back before the potion became fully and permanently effective. When the month was over, he started cooking again. He cooked a feast for a bunch of random Englanders.

“But that was another mistake."

His voice gains a mysterious tone. “What Arthur didn’t realize, was that his traumatic experience affected his subconscious mind, not just his conscious mind. His subconscious retained the memories of all the videos about how to cook like you’re a two-year-old idiot who just likes making a huge mess, and influenced his actions. The once-expert chef had become a now-shitty chef. He cooked the feast, but did it  _SOOOOO_  horribly, that everyone who ate it died of food poisoning.

“The cooking skills of Arthur Iggnatus Azalea Eyebrows Kirkland had been forever tainted by his time-travel misadventure."

He turns the page.

“Many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many...MANY...years later, the date is March 28, 2014. Arthur came to his friend Alfred’s house and cooked something, despite Alfred’s protests. Arthur cooked, and the food he made—which was apparently poundcake, but smelled like burnt cabbages and tasted like petrified couch stuffing—was terrible. Alfred commented that Arthur’s food tasted worse than the food made in HowToBasic  _LOOKED_. Arthur was of course offended. But deep in his mind, his subconscious gasped because it knew that HowToBasic was the very cause of such terrible cooking.

“The cycle of stupidity was complete.

“But the cycle would continue nonetheless.

“And Arthur will have negative infinity cooking skills for all of eternity.”

Alfred closes the book with a loud  _THUD!_  and smiles wide.

“And that, my friends, is how Arthur Kirkland got his terrible cooking skills.”

“The end!”

* * *

A blonde-haired 12-year-old boy wearing a blue sailor outfit sitting on the floor in front of the chair suddenly starts clapping. The other children sitting nearby stare at him for a few seconds.

Then the other micronations join Peter in the applause for Alfred’s, how wonderfully hilarious his story about Artie-Fartie was, and how he made the story greater through his storytelling performance. They cheer and laugh and stuff.

Alfred stands up and takes a few bows. “Thank you! Thank you thank you yes thank you! I’ll be here all week ha ha!”

Unbeknownst to the North American nation or his audience, a certain Brit has been watching and listening through the space between the slightly ajar door to Alfred’s far left. He directs a death-glare at the American, then quietly storms away, fuming to himself and swearing to strangle Alfred the next chance he got.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Feedback and criticism are always appreciated.


End file.
